For many years it has been, and is still, a common practice to bale hay in rectangular block form. A typical such bale may be 38 inches long by 18 inches wide by 14 inches high and may weigh about 70 pounds. Ranchers and dairymen need to handle and store large quantities of hay to feed their stock during times of the year when grazing grass is not available or is in short supply. It is not unusual for a dairy operation to require the handling and storing of as many as 20,000 bales of hay for one years use. Such quantities of hay are typically stored on the ground, outdoors in large stacks, which may be about thirtysix feet long and thirtysix feet wide and twelve feet high, with each such stack containing about 1,700 bales of hay. It is clearly desirable that manual bale by bale handling of such large quantities of hay should be minimized to the greatest possible extent.
In more recent years hay has been put up in round bales, which may be typically 60 inches long and 48 inches in diameter and may weigh between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds. These round bales also present a severe handling problem.
Various efforts to minimize the manual handling of hay bales have been made in the prior art of which I am aware, but none have proved to be entirely satisfactory. Such prior art is exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,468,424, Brauch, 2,542,150, Luebbers, 2,999,608, Ganahl, 3,241,696, Lundahl and 3,889,832, Hanson.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide improved apparatus for loading, unloading and stacking hay bales.
For a further understanding of the invention and further objects, features, and advantages thereof, reference may now be had to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.